Techniques for integrating external content from advertising services into client applications

ABSTRACT

Techniques for integrating advertising content into client applications are presented. Events occurring within client applications are monitored and when a predefined event is encountered and external advertising service is consulted for acquiring external content. The external content is then integrated into one or more portions of presentations associated with the client applications.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This Application is a a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.12/905,225, filed Oct. 15, 2010 and entitled “Techniques For IntegratingExternal Content From Advertising Services Into Client Applications”,which claims priority to Provisional Application Ser. No. 61/252,352filed Oct. 16, 2009 and entitled: “System and Method for Integratingother Digital Advertising Systems with Existing Web Based AdvertisingNetworks;” the disclosure of both of which are incorporated by referencein their entirety herein.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to the computer communication. Inparticular, but not by way of limitation, the present inventiondiscloses techniques for creating a unified digital advertising servicethat combines web site based advertising with other computerapplications.

BACKGROUND

The global Internet has become a mass media on par with radio andtelevision. As a mass media, it has become an invaluable tool forcompanies wishing to advertise to potential customers and directlycommunicate with existing customers.

The main method of Internet advertising is through the use ofadvertisement-sponsored web sites. Web sites have been created forvirtually every topic of human interest. To support the web site hostingexpenses and the creation of new web site content, many web sitesinclude advertising on their web sites.

One of the simplest features of the global Internet, electronic mail, isalso one of its most powerful tools. With electronic mail (email), auser of the Internet can send a message to any other user on theInternet. With the advent of HTML formatted email messages, email cannow contain images and hyperlinks to other resources. Additional files,such as programs or data, can also be enclosed within email. Thus, eventhough email is one of the oldest Internet applications, it remains oneof the most important.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In the drawings, which are not necessarily drawn to scale, like numeralsdescribe substantially similar components throughout the several views.Like numerals having different letter suffixes represent differentinstances of substantially similar components. The drawings illustrategenerally, by way of example, but not by way of limitation, variousembodiments discussed in the present document.

FIG. 1 illustrates a diagrammatic representation of machine in theexample form of a computer system within which a set of instructions,for causing the machine to perform any one or more of the methodologiesdiscussed herein, may be executed.

FIG. 2 illustrates data flow diagram that generally describes how webbased Internet advertising works.

FIG. 3 illustrates data flow diagram that describes how an Internetadvertising service can be used to measure the effectiveness of webbased advertising by recording “click-throughs”.

FIG. 4 illustrates a conceptual diagram that illustrates one method ofhow the receipt of an email message may be detected.

FIG. 5 illustrates a data flow diagram showing how the tracking ofreceipt and viewing of electronic messages displayed with a web browsercan be integrated with Internet advertisement tracking systems.

FIG. 6 illustrates a data flow diagram showing how the tracking ofreceipt and viewing of electronic messages with a mail client programcan be integrated with Internet advertisement tracking systems.

FIG. 7 illustrates how a unified Internet advertising service can becreated to work with web advertising, virtual world advertising, and anyother Internet advertising system.

FIG. 8 illustrates a flow chart describing the operation of a genericserver front-end for the unified Internet advertisement service.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The following detailed description includes references to theaccompanying drawings, which form a part of the detailed description.The drawings show illustrations in accordance with example embodiments.These embodiments, which are also referred to herein as “examples,” aredescribed in enough detail to enable those skilled in the art topractice the invention. It will be apparent to one skilled in the artthat specific details in the example embodiments are not required inorder to practice the present invention. For example, although theexample embodiments are mainly disclosed with reference to emailapplications, the teachings can be used with any other type of computerapplication. The example embodiments may be combined, other embodimentsmay be utilized, or structural, logical and electrical changes may bemade without departing from the scope what is claimed. The followingdetailed description is, therefore, not to be taken in a limiting sense,and the scope is defined by the appended claims and their equivalents.

In this document, the terms “a” or “an” are used, as is common in patentdocuments, to include one or more than one. In this document, the term“or” is used to refer to a nonexclusive or, such that “A or B” includes“A but not B,” “B but not A,” and “A and B,” unless otherwise indicated.Furthermore, all publications, patents, and patent documents referred toin this document are incorporated by reference herein in their entirety,as though individually incorporated by reference. In the event ofinconsistent usages between this document and those documents soincorporated by reference, the usage in the incorporated reference(s)should be considered supplementary to that of this document; forirreconcilable inconsistencies, the usage in this document controls.

Computer Systems

FIG. 1 illustrates a diagrammatic representation of a machine in theexample form of a computer system 100 within which a set of instructions124, for causing the machine to perform any one or more of themethodologies discussed herein, may be executed. In alternativeembodiments, the machine may operate as a standalone device or may beconnected (e.g., networked) to other machines. In a networkeddeployment, the machine may operate in the capacity of a server systemor a client system in server-client network environment. Alternatively,a networked system may operate as a peer machine in a peer-to-peer (ordistributed) network environment.

The machine may be a personal computer (PC) system, a tablet PC, aset-top box (STB), a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a cellulartelephone, a web appliance, a network server, a network router, anetwork switch, a network bridge, or any machine capable of executing aset of instructions (sequential or otherwise) that specify a set ofactions to be taken by that machine. Further, while only a singlemachine is illustrated in FIG. 1, the term “machine” shall also be takento include any collection of machines that individually or jointlyexecute a set (or multiple sets) of instructions to perform any one ormore of the methodologies discussed herein.

The example machine consisting of computer system 100 illustrated inFIG. 1 includes a processor 102 (e.g., a central processing unit (CPU),a graphics processing unit (GPU) or both), a main memory 104, and astatic memory 106, which may communicate with each other via a bus 108.The computer system 100 may further include a video display adapter 110that drives a video display system 115 such as a Liquid Crystal Display(LCD) or a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT). The example computer system 100 alsoincludes an alphanumeric input device 112 (e.g., a keyboard), a cursorcontrol device 114 (e.g., a mouse, trackball, touchpad, or other inputdevice), a disk drive unit 116, a signal generation device 118 (e.g., aspeaker), and a network interface device 120. Note that variousembodiments of a computer system will not always include all of theseperipheral devices.

The disk drive unit 116 includes a machine-readable medium 122 on whichis stored one or more sets of computer instructions and data structures(e.g., instructions 124 also known as ‘software’) embodying or utilizedby any one or more of the methodologies or functions described herein.The instructions 124 may also reside, completely or at least partially,within the main memory 104, the static memory 106, and/or within theprocessor 102 during execution thereof by the computer system 100. Thus,the main memory 104, the static memory 106, and the processor 102 mayalso constitute machine-readable media.

The instructions 124 for operating computer system 100 may betransmitted or received over a computer network 126 via the networkinterface device 120. Such a transmission of instructions may utilizeany one of a number of well-known transfer protocols such as HypertextTransport Protocol, File Transfer Protocol (FTP), or any other suitabledata transfer protocol.

While the machine-readable medium 122 is shown in an example embodimentto be a single medium, the term “machine-readable medium” should betaken to include a single medium or multiple media (e.g., a centralizedor distributed database, and/or associated caches and servers) thatstore the one or more sets of instructions. The term “machine-readablemedium” shall also be taken to include any physical medium that iscapable of storing, encoding, or carrying a set of instructions forexecution by the machine and that cause the machine to perform any oneor more of the methodologies described herein, or that is capable ofstoring, encoding or carrying data structures utilized by or associatedwith such a set of instructions. The term “machine-readable medium”shall accordingly be taken to include, but not be limited to,solid-state memories, optical media, flash memory, and magnetic media.

For the purposes of this specification, the term “module” includes anidentifiable portion of computer code, computational or executableinstructions, data, or computational object to achieve a particularfunction, operation, processing, or procedure. A module need not beimplemented in software; a module may be implemented in software,hardware/circuitry, or a combination of software and hardware.

World Wide Web Advertising

Although individual personal computer systems are powerful tools ontheir own, the usefulness of personal computer systems is greatlyenhanced when the personal computer systems are coupled together intocomputer networks. When personal computer systems are coupled togetherinto computer networks, the personal computer systems can share networkaccessible resources such as printers, scanners, and network accessiblestorage space. More importantly, the users of the personal computersystems can share data such that users can easily exchange messages,documents, images, video, and other type of digital information.

Individual local computer networks have been coupled together with acommon well-defined protocol known as TCP/IP in order to create a globalinterconnection of computer networks known as the Internet. With theglobal Internet, any Internet coupled computer system can communicatewith any other Internet coupled computer system. Thousands of differentdigital communication applications have been created to take advantageof the interconnectivity offered by the global Internet.

One of the most well-known and popular Internet-based digitalcommunication applications is the World Wide Web. The World Wide Web(WWW) is a collection of computer server systems, known as web servers,which serve rich multi-media web pages to WWW client programs thatrequest the web pages. The web client programs are known as web browserprograms and include, among many others, Microsoft's Internet Explorer,Apple Computer's Safari, and Mozilla's Firefox.

Due to its ease of use and rich feature set, the WWW has become a newmass media on par with radio and television that has spawned its ownmedia industry. Web site publishers create interesting WWW content toattract web site visitors and then generate revenue by servingadvertisements to web site visitors, charging the web site visitors asubscription fee, or using another business model. Virtually every majornewspaper, magazine, and television station has created a web site onthe WWW in order to participate in this relatively new media industry.

As with radio and television, a large portion of the commercial WWW ismade up of advertising-supported web sites. These advertising-supportedweb sites provide interesting content in order to attract viewers andthen charge advertisers' fees for serving web-based advertisements tothe web viewers along with the interesting content created to attractthe web site viewers.

An Internet advertising service industry has grown up along with the newInternet media industry to service the advertising-supported Internetpublishers. The Internet advertising service industry provides web-basedadvertisements to Internet publishers on-demand, tracks theseadvertisement requests, and provides payment to the Internet publishersfor displaying the web-based advertisements to the Internet viewers.FIG. 2 illustrates a high-level flow diagram describing how theweb-based advertising services provided by an Internet advertisingservice generally operate.

Referring to FIG. 2, a person at personal computer system 251 isillustrated accessing an advertising-supported web site created byInternet publisher 210. Specifically, when the personal computer system251 accesses the web site of Internet publisher 210, the browser program256 makes a request 252 (such as an HTTP “GET” request) to the webserver 215 run by the Internet publisher 210. The web server 215 thenreturns a response 212 with the proper web page data request from theweb site database 217. Within the web page data in the response 212,advertisements are interspersed within the web site content such thatthe web page viewer at personal computer system 251 is exposed toadvertising that supports the Internet publisher 210.

With most advertising supported web sites, the advertisements within theweb pages are actually links to externally provided advertisements.These links to advertisements generally refer to a third-party Internetadvertisement service such as advertisement service 220. Thus, tocompletely render the web page on personal computer system 251, thebrowser program 256 uses the link to the advertisement to make anadvertisement request 254 to the third-party advertisement service 220.The advertisement request 254 to the advertisement service 220 mayinclude some contextual information about advertisement request.Specifically, the request may include information about the Internetpublisher 210, some information known about the user at personalcomputer system 251, and information about the actual web page beingdelivered to the user at personal computer system 251. Thisadvertisement request 254 is then handled by an advertisement selector225 that may use the contextual information within the advertisementrequest 254 to select an appropriate advertisement from advertisementdatabase 227 for display to the user at personal computer system 251.

The Internet advertisement selected by advertisement selector 225 isreturned in advertisement response 222 to personal computer system 251such that browser program 256 can display the selected advertisement tothe person at personal computer system 251. In addition to providing therequested advertisement, the advertisement selector 225 also recordsthat the advertisement was delivered to the user at personal computersystem 251 on behalf of the web site of the Internet publisher 210 inadvertisement activity log 228. Advertisement services can keep track ofthe different client computer systems that advertisements are served toby placing identifiers (commonly known as “cookies”) on the clientcomputer systems.

Internet Advertisement Result Tracking

As with any service that people pay for, the purchasers of advertisingneed to have some type of metric in order to gauge the effectiveness aparticular advertising service. With newspaper and magazine advertising,the advertising purchasers can be told how many subscribers receive thenewspaper or magazine on a subscription basis and how many copies aresold at newsstands. Similarly, broadcast ratings services, such as theArbitron and Neilson services, are used to determine how many peoplelisten to or view a particular advertising-supported radio or televisionshow, respectively. Internet-based advertising services must be able toprovide the same type of information such that advertisement purchasersknow that the advertisements are actually reaching an intended audience.

Due to the nature of the computer network technology, Internetadvertising services can actually provide much more and betterinformation than broadcast advertising services. As set forth above withreference to FIG. 2, each and every display of an Internet advertisementto an end user may be logged by an advertisement service. A display ofan Internet advertisement to an Internet user is commonly known as‘impression’.

However, the mere logging of each display of an Internet advertisementto an end user is just the beginning. With World-Wide-Web based Internetadvertising, an Internet advertisement service may also keep track ofevery instance when a displayed Internet advertisement creates enoughinterest in an end user such that the Internet user interacts with theInternet advertisement. Specifically, all Internet advertisements mayalso include a link such that when a web viewer clicks on an Internetadvertisement (selects the advertisement with a cursor control devicesuch as a computer mouse and clicks on an activation button) that webviewer will then be directed to another web site designated by theInternet advertisement. At the designated web site, the web viewer mayobtain more information about the product or service presented withinthe Internet advertisement. An example of such Internet advertisementclick-tracking is illustrated in FIG. 3.

Referring to FIG. 3, a person at personal computer system 351 may beviewing a web site from Internet publisher 310 that includes externallysourced Internet advertisements served along path 322 from advertisementservice 320 (in the same manner as set forth with reference to FIG. 2).The Internet advertisements from advertisement service 320 will bedisplayed on the personal computer system 351 with hyperlinks such thatif the user at personal computer system 351 clicks on any of thedisplayed advertisements, the user will be directed to a new web site.Specifically, if the user clicks on an Internet advertisement then thebrowser program 356 will make a request 371 to the advertisement service320 that may be directed to a click redirector 329.

The click redirector 329 will record the user's click into theadvertisement activity log 328 (for billing purposes) and then send aresponse message 372 to personal computer system 351 that redirects theweb browser program 356 to a web site that has been associated with theInternet advertisement that the user clicked on. In the example of FIG.3, the response message 372 redirects the browser program 356 to the website of an Internet-based retailer 330 mentioned in the Internetadvertisement that the user clicked on. Thus, the browser program 356will then make request 332 to the web server 335 of Internet-basedretailer 330 and receive a designated web page from Internet-basedretailer 330. The tracking of clicks on WWW advertisements is known as“click-through” tracking and has become an extremely important metricfor measuring Internet advertisement effectiveness.

Internet Email Advertising and Marketing

Although the WWW gets most of the attention, simple electronic mail(email) is also an invaluable form of Internet-based advertising andmarketing. Email has long been used by commercial entities forcommunicating with existing clients and prospective clients. Forexample, commercial entities send out periodic email messages toexisting customers informing those customers of product upgrades, newproducts, and other information that the client may find useful.Commercial entities also frequently send email to prospective customerswho have requested an email message by sending an email request orclicking on a web site link requesting additional information.

Email-based advertising and marketing is so useful and so efficient thatit has become massively abused by advertisers that engage in massemailing campaigns that send millions of unsolicited commercial emailmessages to users. Such unsolicited commercial email (UCE) messages arecommonly known as “spam”. An entire industry has been created to filterspam messages out of email traffic in order to reduce email traffic andnot bother email recipients with unsolicited commercial offers. Althoughthe unsolicited commercial email solicitations (spam) are generallyfrowned upon and often illegal, legitimate commercial email remains anexcellent method of conveying information to existing customers andprospective customers that have requested information. With the advanceof HTML formatted email, email messages can carry the same richmulti-media information as web pages (images, animations, etc.)

With email advertising and marketing, an entity that sends out emailadvertisements will know how many email advertising messages were sentout. However, that entity will not know how many of those messages werefiltered out by spam filters at Internet service providers, filtered outby spam filters at destination mail servers, filtered out by emailclient programs, deleted by a user without opening the message, orotherwise discarded without leaving any significant impression upon theintended recipient. Thus, the effectiveness of obtaining advertisingimpressions upon users with email-based advertising is very difficult tomeasure.

In attempts of remedying this situation, many email based marketers andadvertisers started embedding links to small (or transparent) imageswithin HTML-formatted email advertisement messages. In this manner, whena user opened up and viewed the email advertisement message, the user'semail client program would need to access the server that hosts theembedded image in order to render the email message. In this manner, theaccessing of the embedded image notifies the sender of the emailadvertisement message that one of the email advertisement messagerecipients received the email advertisement message, opened the emailadvertisement message, and viewed the email advertisement message.Furthermore, if the email advertiser used unique addresses for the imagelinks embedded in the email advertisement messages then that emailadvertiser would be able to detect exactly which recipient of the emailadvertisement message received and viewed the email advertisementmessage.

The technique of embedding image links into HTML-formatted messages doesnot work for users that only accept text-based email messages. Andworse, the technique was quickly adopted by spammers that sent out largevolumes of unsolicited commercial email messages as a means ofdetermining which email addresses of randomly generated email addresseswere associated with real email recipients. Thus, most email clientprograms will now no longer display linked images in their defaultsettings. Thus, the embedded image link technique for determining whenan email recipient has received and open an email message has becomelargely useless for determining if a user has received and opened anemail message.

Iconix, Inc. of Santa Clara has developed various means of detectingwhen a user has received and/or viewed email messages that do not relyupon the display of an embedded image from an HTML-formatted email. FIG.4 illustrated one exemplary embodiment of the email tracking system forweb-based email systems. To describe the operation of the email trackingsystem, an example usage of the system will be disclosed following anemail message from sender to recipient with reference to FIG. 4. In theembodiment of FIG. 4, a mail processor program 427 within a maildelivery server is used to perform the tracking of email messages;however the mail processing program may reside at other locations alongthe mail delivery chain, including the mail client or web browser.

Initially an email sender at computer system 412 uses a mail clientprogram 416 to compose and send an email message addressed for deliveryto an end user of computer system 436. Any type of email client programor other email sending program may be used. Ideally, the email senderwill tag the email message with various tracking information but this isnot necessary. The mail client program 416 passes the composed emailmessage to the mail server 415 that has been assigned to handleout-going email messages for mail client program 416.

Mail server 415 then parses the standard email header information in thecomposed email message to determine where to send the email message.After parsing the Internet email headers to determine the emailmessage's destination address, mail server 415 then delivers the emailmessage along data path 492 to incoming mail server 425 that isdesignated to receive email for the intended email recipient at computersystem 436. In the example of FIG. 4, computer system 436 uses a mailserver provided by his local Internet Service Provider (ISP) such thatincoming email server 425 is illustrated as part of the Internet fromthe perspective of computer system 436.

Incoming mail server 425 determines that the email message is addressedto an email user that is served by web-based mail delivery server 430such that the email message passes along path 497 to the mail deliveryserver 430 where the email message waits until the email messagerecipient requests his email.

When the email recipient at computer system 436 requests his email, amail processor 427 may then be used to process each email message. Therequest can be done automatically via and email client 416 atperiodically intervals when pulled from an email server 430.Additionally, it is noted that the sequence can occur in a variety ofmanners, such as when the email arrives at the server 430. Mailprocessor 427 examines each email message to determine how to processthat email message. Mail processor 427 may be integrated into the maildelivery server 430 software or it may be implemented as a separate mailfilter (sometimes known as a “milter”) program, or on the client 436 orin the browser of 436.

In one embodiment, the mail processor program 427 contacts an emailanalysis server application 465 along data path 494 with informationabout the email message and requesting advice on how the email messageshould be processed (or if the email message should be processed atall). The information about the email message may consist of informationfrom the “From:” field, the “Return-Path:” field, and any other emailfield that provides useful information to identify the sender of theemail message. As noted earlier, special tracking information may havebeen placed in the email message to aid in this mail identification andprocessing task. In some embodiments, the communication between mailprocessor program 427 and email analysis server application 465 (alongdata paths 494 and 495) is encrypted for privacy and security reasons.

Upon receiving a request as to how a particular email message should beprocessed, email analysis server application 465 may consult a customerdatabase 467 to determine if the email message was sent by an entitythat has requested that their email messages should be processed byrecipients in a special manner. Note that at this point, the emailanalysis server application 465 has been informed that the email messageis being delivered to its recipient such that email analysis serverapplication 465 may note in the email activity database 469 that theemail message was delivered successfully. After consulting the customerdatabase 467, the email analysis server application 465 will generate areturn message that informs the mail processor 427 how to process theemail message. Note that the email analysis server application 465 mayspecify no specific special processing for most email messages andinstead focus only upon those messages from entities listed in thecustomer database 467.

Email analysis server application 465 will provide its analysis to themail processor 427 in a message sent along return data path 495 thatcontains any special information that specifies how the email messageshould be processed. In one embodiment, the message from email analysisserver application 465 may specify that the email message should beauthenticated and may specify how the email message should beauthenticated by providing instructions that help the mail processorprogram 427 perform the authentication. Furthermore, the email analysisserver application 465 may also provide special instructions and datathat specify how the email message should be handled after emailauthentication. For example, an instruction may specify that messagesthat fail authentication be deleted or placed into a quarantine folder.The instructions and data from email analysis server application 465 mayfurther include display directives that describe how the results of anemail authentication should be presented on the email recipient'sdisplay screen. Display directives may include specific images (orpointers to such images) or text that should be displayed after finalauthentication decision.

Upon receiving the response message from the email analysis serverapplication 465 along data path 495, the mail processor program 427 willuse the information in that message to process the email message. Forexample, if the email message includes the Domain Keys Identified Mail(DKIM) signature system for email authentication as set forth inInternet RFC 4871 then mail processor program 427 may perform the stepsnecessary to authenticate DKIM email messages. Specifically, mailprocessor program 427 may contact the sender's domain name server (DNS)417 along data path 498 to obtain key information for that domain. Mailprocessor program 427 will receive the public key associated with thedomain of the sender along path 499 and attempt to decrypt the DKIMsignature on the message. Note that many other different types of emailauthentication may also be used.

With the DKIM authentication system, if the cryptographic signaturedecrypts properly (as will occur with an authentic email message fromCompany A containing a proper cryptographic signature from Company A'sdomain) then mail processor program 427 may mark the email message asauthentic. If the cryptographic signature does not decrypt properly orthere is no cryptographic signature (as may be the case for an emailmessage send from a malicious user such as spoofer 450 that isattempting to send forged email messages that purport to come fromanother entity), then mail processor program 427 may perform an actionthat was specified to be performed upon authentic failure in the messagefrom email analysis server application 465. After completing itsprocessing of the email message, the mail processor program 427 may thenallow web-based mail delivery server 430 to display the email message onthe browser 438 running on the recipient's computer system 436.

In the embodiment of FIG. 4, the mail processor program 427 resideswithin a web based email delivery server 430 such that any access froman email client (such as web browser 438 in computer system 436) to anemail message in email delivery server 430 can be tracked and reportedto email analysis server application 465. Thus, mail processor program427 may inform email analysis server application 465 when a user sees anemail message in a list view, views an email message, forwards an emailmessage, deletes an email message, or performs any other action on anemail message. Other embodiments allow the processing to be performed atother stages along the email delivery chain.

Integrating Email Advertising with Existing Internet Advertising Systems

The email tracking system disclosed with reference to FIG. 4 allows anadvertiser or marketer to track the receipt and viewing of emailmessages. Although useful, such isolated information is of limitedutility to an entity that wishes to know much more about its customersand potential customers. To better understand how an email marketing oradvertising message affects a particular user, it would be verydesirable to have the email message tracking information within acontext with other advertising information presented to that particularuser. To achieve this highly desirable goal, the present inventionproposed integrating an email tracking system with other advertisingsystems such that the email tracking data can be viewed in the contextof these other advertising systems. In particular, it would be verydesirable to integrate an email message tracking system with electronicadvertising campaigns such as advertisements on the WWW.

FIG. 5 illustrates an embodiment wherein the email tracking system ofFIG. 4 is integrated with an existing Internet advertising service.Referring to FIG. 5, Company A 510 may send an email message from itsmail server 515 along path 581 to the incoming email server 525 thathandles email for the user of computer system 551. Incoming email server525 will pass the email message to a web mail server 527 that handlesemail deliveries for the user of computer system 551.

When the user of computer system 551 uses her client program 566 foraccessing email, that client program 566 will access the mail server 527along data path 582 to check for mail. In the embodiment of FIG. 5 a webbrowser is client program 566 that accesses a web based mail server,such as mail server 527. However other embodiments may use differentclient programs and mail servers. The mail retrieval request from clientprogram 566 may set off a chain of events as forth below.

As with the system of FIG. 4, a mail processor 524 may make a request toan email analysis server application 545 to determine how a particularemail message should be processed. The email analysis server application545 will consult its customer database 547 to determine how each emailmessage should be processed. At this point, the email analysis serverapplication 545 may also note that the email message had been requestedby the recipient in the email activity database 549. The email analysisserver application 545 will return processing instructions in a messageback to the mail processor 524 along data path 593.

A set of instructions and data from email analysis server application545 may instruct mail processor 524 to authenticate the email message inorder to determine if the email message was actually sent by the senderlisted in the “From:” field of the email message or from the “purportedresponsible authority”. In one embodiment this may be performed byretrieving a public key from a DNS server run by the domain of thepurported email sender and verifying a digital signature on the emailmessage. (This is the DKIM authentication system.) To perform the DKIMauthentication, mail processor 524 will send a request along path 594 toDNS Server 517 and receive a public key in a response message receivedalong path 595. Note that this is just one possible method ofauthenticating an email message and other authentication methods may beused. Furthermore, no authentication need be performed at all.

If the received email message is authenticated properly, the mailprocessor 524 may instruct the web mail server 527 to display a logoadjacent to the email message in a list of email messages displayed tothe user at computer system 551. For example, a check-mark imagesignifying that email message has been checked for authenticity may bedisplayed next to the email message. In another embodiment, an actualtrademark logo associated with the entity that sent the email message,Company A in this example, may be displayed adjacent to theauthenticated email message from Company A.

The preceding example has been disclosed with reference to mailprocessing consisting of the authentication of email messages. However,this is only one possible reason of many for accessing the Internetadvertisement service in conjunction with an email message. Othermethods may include the display of special avatars or other informationassociated with certain email message senders.

The display of an image (or other data item) provides an opportunity tointegrate information about delivered email messages to an Internetadvertising service. Specifically, the mail processor 524 may instructthe web mail server 527 to display this check-mark image or trademarklogo of Company A from an image server 534 hosted by an Internetadvertisement service 530. Thus, email client program 566 will send animage request along path 584 to the image server 534 on Internetadvertisement service 530 to obtain the check-mark image or trademarklogo of Company A. Image server 534 on the Internet advertisementservice 530 will then respond with the requested check-mark image ortrademark logo of Company A in a response message along path 585. (Thischeck-mark image or trademark logo of Company A may be stored inadvertisement database 537 or elsewhere by unified Internetadvertisement service 530.) After serving the check-mark image ortrademark logo of Company A, the image server 534 will note in theadvertisement activity log 538 that the check-mark image or trademarklogo of Company A had been served to computer system 551. This servingof the check-mark image or trademark logo of Company A confirms that theemail recipient received the email message and saw an advertisingimpression.

If the email message had been tagged with a unique identifier tag, thenthe mail processor 524 may use that unique identifier tag, or CampaignID as part of the Internet Protocol (IP) address (e.g., may be used as alink via a Uniform Resource Locator—URL); the address used to obtain theimage from within image server 534. In this manner, the image server 534of Internet advertising service 530 could identify in the advertisementactivity log 538 exactly which particular email message of manyadvertising email messages sent out was received. Similarly, the emailanalysis server application 545 may provide a unique identifier to themail processor 524 such that the mail processor 524 could use thatunique identifier to create an address (build the URL) of an imagehosted by Internet advertising service 530. Note that all the differentimage addresses created by using unique identifiers in the image addresscan be mapped to the same image. For example, image server 534 mayrespond to all image requests by looking within a particular directoryfolder for the image being requested. In such an embodiment, the actualfile name in a directory path is not used to identify a particular imagebut the actual file name is instead used as a mechanism for passinginformation to the image server 534 hosted by Internet advertisingservice 530.

Even if no unique tagging of individual advertising email messages isperformed, the Internet advertising service 530 may still be able to useother means in order to associate a particular received advertisingemail message with other advertisements presented to that same computersystem. When a WWW server such as image server 534 serves an image toclient computer such as computer system 551, that image server 534 willread an identifier from a cookie stored on computer system 551 toidentify that computer system. That identifier retrieved from computersystem 551 can be used to look up every other advertising image servedto computer system 551 by Internet advertisement service 530. Thus, theprocedure of reading a cookie when computer system 551 an imageassociated with the display of a known email message can be used toassociate the email message display along with other advertisementsdisplayed on the same computer system 551. If no cookie yet resides oncomputer system 551, then a cookie will be placed such that subsequentadvertisements can be associated with a received email message.

In the preceding example, the check-mark image or trademark logo ofCompany A was displayed during a list view of email messages (a viewlisting all the most recent email messages received by the user). Thesame procedure can be used again when the user performs any additionalactivities on the same email message. The mail processor 524 will useslightly different encodings of image addresses to identify the specifyactivity being performed on the email message. For example, if the userselects the email message for display to the user, the email clientprogram 566 (a web browser in this example) will send another request tothe web mail server 527 that will invoke mail processor 524. It is alsonoted that mail processor 524 can reside within client program 566, insome embodiments; in such embodiments, there may be no communicationjust the action by the user on the email message and then the reportingof the ad impression in the opened email message. Mail processor 524will specify a specific image address to use in the subsequent webdisplay of the email message on computer system 551. Thus, when clientprogram 566 issues a request along path 584 to the image server 534 onInternet advertisement service 530 to obtain another image to constructa display with the opened email message. Image server 534 will respondwith the requested image in another response message along path 585 andthen record in the advertisement activity log 538 that particular imageassociated with the message display has been served to the user atcomputer system 551. In this manner, receipt, viewing, deletion or anyother activity associated with a known email message may be tracked bythe Internet advertisement service 530.

FIG. 6 illustrates an alternative embodiment wherein special processingon an email message is performed by a mail processor routine 667 in amail client program 666 on the end-user's computer system 651. In theembodiment of FIG. 6, an email message destined for computer system 651is sent to the incoming mail server 625 designated to receive email forthe user of computer system 651. That incoming mail server 625 thenpasses the message to a mail delivery server 627 that waits for the userof computer system 651 to request his email. Mail delivery server 627may be a POP server, an IMAP server, a MAPI server, or any other type ofmail delivery server. When computer system 651 requests mail alongmessage path 682, mail delivery server 627 will respond with the user'semail messages along 683. Upon receiving email, the mail processor 667associated with the mail client program 666 will begin processing email.The email message processing may include authentication but may alsoinvolve other processing tasks.

To help process the email messages, mail processor 667 may request helpfrom email analysis server application 645 with a message along path692. As before, email analysis server application 645 will respond alongdata path 693 providing instructions and data to help mail processor 667process the email message. The instructions and data may includereferences to images or other data provided by Internet advertisementservice 630 which the mail processor 667 must reference.

Mail processor will then reference the images or other data provided bythe Internet advertisement service 630 using the request along with datapath 684. When Internet advertisement service 630 receives that request,the Internet advertisement service 630 will make a record in theadvertisement activity log 638. Note that the request along data path684 from mail processor routine 667 may include unique identificationinformation retrieved from the email message header or provided by emailanalysis server application 645 such that Internet advertisement service630 will be able to identify exactly which email message was processedby mail processor 667.

In one particular embodiment, no access to any email analysis serverapplication such as email analysis server application 645 is required.To implement such an embodiment, the email message should be encodedwith specific information in the email headers when the email message issent. Ideally, this information will include a unique identifier for theemail message but this is not necessary. Then, when the mail processorroutine 667 receives the email message, the mail processor routine 667will use that specific information to issue a request to a server at theInternet advertisement service 630. The request may be for an image orother data. The server at the Internet advertisement service 630 willuse the request from mail processor routine 667 to indicate inadvertising activity log 638 that the email message has been received.If unique identification information was placed in the email headers,the mail processor routine 667 may use that unique identifierinformation to create a request for a server at the Internetadvertisement service 630 that identifies exactly which email messagewas processed.

As illustrated with reference to FIG. 5, the tracking of both web-basedadvertising and email based advertising may be performed by a singleentity. This single entity may be referred to as a unified Internetadvertising service.

It is noted that the architecture layout of the components andtechniques presented herein can occur in a variety of manners andlocations throughout a network. For example, the techniques forprocessing the messages can occur via a browser plug-in, via a nativeintegrated web mail client, via a native email client application (suchas but not limited to Outlook®, GroupWise®, etc.), via a native featurethat is integrated into a browser, and the like.

In another embodiment of FIG. 7, a user places the cursor or mouse overthe icon/image or logo of a message appearing within an email list viewof an email client; email message preview; or message open, and an emailcertificate is created. The email certificate can contain informationabout the sender, and the certificate can also be combined with the adservice's image server. In this case the ad server provides the mailprocessor with an advertisement or coupon for placement within the emailcertificate. That coupon or advertisement may be further refined ordirected by including unique IDs, such as the campaign ID, or cookies tothe ad service when the request for the advertisement or coupon is made.As an example, Company A sends a reminder email to a customer informinghim/her that some consumable product is about to be required forcontinued support, such as ink cartridges for a printer. The emailarrives at the inbox and is processed; the mail service obtains CompanyA logo and places it in the email list view. The user can mouse over theCompany A logo and the email certificate will contain a coupon forreplacement product.

So, when focus of is placed over an icon image appearing next to alisting for an email message within an email client and with respect toa display interfaced to a processing device (phone, personal digitalassistant, computer, etc.), a popup view is displayed having acertificate of the sender to provide a form of authenticity to the emailmessage. In addition, the popup view can include some summary or portionof the body of the email message, such as a coupon. The popup view caninclude directional arrows to provide additional pages to the popupwindow and/or may include links that the user can activate. The popupwindow may even include operations such as “print the coupon” and thelike. The amount of information included within the popup can becustomized so as to not clutter the view unnecessarily and detract fromthe value of having condensed information in the popup window. In somecases, information in the popup window may not even appear in the bodyor the email message. For example partners to an enterprise that sentthe email message may include their advertisements within the popupwindow. This popup window is entirely customizable by an enterprise.

Additional Internet Advertising Tracking

Although the WWW and email are two of the most well known means ofadvertising on the Internet, there are many other avenues foradvertising on the Internet. For example, many useful applicationprograms that display advertisements to the user when used may bedistributed to users for free. When users of such applications run theapplication, the application will display an advertisement to the user.Similarly, the inhabitants of a virtual world (such as Second Life) orthe players in a massive online game may be presented withadvertisements within the virtual world.

To be useful, such alternate venues of Internet advertising should alsobe tracked. Thus, the providers of such advertising supportedapplication programs should track when such programs displayadvertisements. Similarly, the online services that host virtual worldsor online games should track when such online services displayadvertisements to their users. In this manner, these alternate venues ofInternet advertising can be compensated for their advertising services.

Having each individual Internet advertising venue track its ownadvertising displays allows those individual Internet advertising venuesto track their advertising in order to charge for their advertisingservices. However, as noted earlier, such isolated advertisementtracking does not provide much useful information on the effectivenessof an overall advertising campaign that may use many different avenuesfor advertising. To provide better advertisement effectiveness tracking,the proposed unified advertising service system may be used to trackadvertisements with any other type of Internet application. The unifiedadvertising service would be a centralized advertising service thatwould provide advertisements to many different types of applicationsthat display advertisements. In addition to serving advertisements, theunified advertising service may also collect other user activityinformation that many be of value.

FIG. 7 illustrates a block diagram of a unified advertisement service720 being used on the Internet 700. (Note that although the Internet isillustrated in the example of FIG. 7, any public or private datacommunication network may be used.) The unified Internet advertisementservice 720 is used to support multiple different types of clientprograms. In the example of FIG. 7, two different client programs arebeing supported: a web browser client 756 and a virtual world client766. However, many additional client programs such as cell phoneapplications, voice over IP applications, video conferencingapplications, streaming radio applications, and streaming videoapplications may be supported as well.

The web browser client 756 may be handled in the traditional manner aspreviously set forth. Specifically, when web browser client 756 makes arequest 712 to Internet publisher 710, the corresponding web pageresponse 714 will include links to Internet advertisements. The webbrowser client 756 will then following the links with request 754 to thead selector 725 of unified Internet advertisement service 720 in orderto obtain an advertisement in response message 755 that will bedisplayed on web browser 756. (Note that the ad selector 725 will recordthat the advertisement was served in advertisement activity log 728.)

The virtual world client 766 will be handled in a generally similarfashion but with some differences inherent in the specific clientapplication. The virtual world client 766 may indicate that the user'savatar has entered a new room with request 762. The virtual world server735 will consult the virtual world database 737 to determine thesurroundings for the user's avatar. The virtual world server 735 willthen respond to the virtual world client 766 with information about theavatar's new surroundings. The response 763 may contain the actual datafor rendering the avatar's surrounding or the response may contain apointer to cached surroundings information already stored on computersystem 761. If the new location for the user's avatar includes a posterof an advertisement, the response 763 may also instruct the virtualworld client 766 to obtain an advertisement image from unified Internetadvertisement service 720. Thus, virtual world client 766 will make arequest to image server 724 at the unified Internet advertisementservice 720 for an advertisement image. Image server will then respondwith an advertisement image along 765 that virtual world client 766 canrender on advertisement poster. Image server 724 will record that avirtual world advertisement was served in the advertisement activity log728.

Unified Internet Advertising Tracking

In the example set forth in FIG. 7, there are two separate computersystems 751 and 761 that are illustrated accessing the unifiedadvertisement service 720 individually with web browser client 756 andvirtual world client 766, respectively. However, both web browser client756 and virtual world client 766 may reside on the same computer system.Thus, the user of such a computer may receive advertisements fordifferent application usages from the same unified advertisement service720. In this manner, the advertisement tracking ability for differentapplication platforms can be unified.

For example, a user may first see an advertisement for a particularcompany in a virtual world. The user may then later see anotheradvertisement for the same company when later browsing the web. If theuser clicks on that web advertisement and thus goes to the web site ofthat company, that click-through will also be recorded. Thus,advertisement tracking across multiple platforms can be tracked with theunified advertisement service 720.

Adding Additional Applications to the Unified Internet AdvertisingSystems

The virtual world client 766 example set forth in FIG. 7 represents onlyone of countless possible client Internet applications that may beconfigured to operate with the unified Internet advertisement service720. Additional client applications may be added to the system in orderto use the existing advertising service front-ends such as the adselector 725 and image server 724. Alternatively, new applications mayuse their own server front-ends such as other media server 729. Todescribe the general procedure for inter-operating with the unifiedInternet advertisement service 720, a high-level flow diagram ispresented in FIG. 8 that describes the operation of a generic serverfront-end for the unified Internet advertisement service 720.

Initially, an advertisement request is received from a compatible clientprogram at stage 810. Note that the advertisement request may be verydifferent for each type of client program. Some requests will be forimages to display, some requests will require the system to select anadvertisement, and some requests may simply provide information for theserver to log. The request is then parsed by the server front-end (suchas other media server 729) at stage 820. The parsing extracts theinformation needed from the request. If the request from the clientprogram is not properly formatted, then the server front-end may discardthe request or respond with an error message to the client system. Therequests may be encrypted and/or digitally signed such that unauthorizedprograms cannot make advertisement requests to the Internetadvertisement service.

Next, at stage 830, the server front-end determines if the advertisementrequest requires the server front-end to make an advertisementselection. When the server front-end must make an advertisementselection, the server front-end uses all the information extracted fromthe advertisement request message to make the best possibleadvertisement selection for the particular context. The advertisementrequest message may include all sorts of information to help make a goodadvertisement selection such as demographic information, surroundingcontext, the type of application making the advertisement request, etc.Even when an advertisement request does not explicitly provide contextinformation, the advertisement request may implicitly containinformation that may be used to select an advertisement. For example,the Internet Protocol (IP) address from the advertisement requestor canbe mapped to a specific geographic area such that an advertisement mostappropriate for that particular geographic area may be selected. Once anadvertisement is selected, the Internet advertisement service systemproceeds to stage 850.

At stage 850, a selected advertisement (or other requested information)is retrieved from the advertisement database. This selected item mayhave been explicitly requested in the received request or it may havebeen selected by the server front-end at step 840. The server front-endthen serves the selected advertisement (or other information) to therequestor at step 860. Note that steps 850 and 860 need not be performedfor advertisement requests that were made by client programs that wereonly reporting an advertisement impression. (The advertisement may havebeen cached by client program such that no advertisement needed to beserved to the client program.)

At step 870, the server front-end then updates the advertisementactivity log. The server front-end stores relevant information into theadvertisement activity log such as which advertisement was served, whenthe advertisement was served, any identification information that wasassociated with the requestor, etc.

Web Hosting in Exchange for Tracking Information

The costs of running an Internet publication include all of the costsassociated with actually hosting the Internet publication online. Forexample, referring back to FIG. 7, the Internet publisher 710 must payfor several information technology costs. The Internet publisher 710must pay for the disk space and database to store the web site data 717.The Internet publisher 710 must also pay for the physical web server 715that handles web site requests. The Internet publisher 710 must also payan Internet service provider for the connection 718 to the Internet 700.All of this information technology infrastructure must be created andmaintained by information technology staff.

Of the various costs of hosting an Internet web site one of the mostexpensive portions is the connection to Internet. Referring to FIG. 7,the cost of the connection 718 to the Internet 700 will depend on howmuch data carrying capacity (bandwidth) the connection 718 has. The textof a web site generally uses very little capacity. But images, sounds,and especially video use much larger amounts of bandwidth.

In order to reduce costs for an Internet publisher, a service (such asunified Internet advertisement service 720) may offer to host variousimages on behalf of an Internet publisher. Specifically, images relatedto identifiable products or services may be hosted for free since thehosting service may be able to sell the tracking information to thevendors of those identifiable products or services. For example, ifautomobile web site reviews a particular car and the web site reviewincludes images of the reviewed car then a service (unified Internetadvertisement service 720) may host the images for that Internetpublisher for free (or at reduced cost) in exchange for the ability totrack the display of those images. The manufacturer of that automobilemay then request that the unified Internet advertisement service 720serve additional advertisements for that automobile for the Internetusers that read that particular automobile review. The unified Internetadvertisement service 720 will be able to do this since the unifiedInternet advertisement service 720 will have recorded identificationinformation from the various client systems that requested the imagesassociated with the automobile review.

The preceding description is intended to be illustrative, and notrestrictive. For example, the above-described embodiments (or one ormore aspects thereof) may be used in combination with each other. Otherembodiments will be apparent to those of skill in the art upon reviewingthe above description. The scope of the claims should, therefore, bedetermined with reference to the appended claims, along with the fullscope of equivalents to which such claims are entitled. In the appendedclaims, the terms “including” and “in which” are used as theplain-English equivalents of the respective terms “comprising” and“wherein.” Also, in the following claims, the terms “including” and“comprising” are open-ended, that is, a system, device, article, orprocess that includes elements in addition to those listed after such aterm in a claim are still deemed to fall within the scope of that claim.Moreover, in the following claims, the terms “first,” “second,” and“third,” etc. are used merely as labels, and are not intended to imposenumerical requirements on their objects.

The Abstract is provided to comply with 37 C.F.R. § 1.72(b), whichrequires that it allow the reader to quickly ascertain the nature of thetechnical disclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that itwill not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of theclaims. Also, in the above Detailed Description, various features may begrouped together to streamline the disclosure. This should not beinterpreted as intending that an unclaimed disclosed feature isessential to any claim. Rather, inventive subject matter may lie in lessthan all features of a particular disclosed embodiment. Thus, thefollowing claims are hereby incorporated into the Detailed Description,with each claim standing on its own as a separate embodiment.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method, comprising: via a processor of anincoming mail server performing operations comprising: receiving amessage directed to a mail client associated with a recipient of themessage; identifying external content that is to be integrated into themessage when opened on the mail client; obtaining the external contentand instructions associated with displaying the message within the mailclient and associated with tracking actions of the mail client withrespect to the external content, wherein obtaining further includesobtaining the external content and the instructions from an externalservice based on the external content and obtaining the external contentand the instructions before delivering the message to the mail client;delivering the message to the mail client without the external content;selectively integrating the external content into the message when themail client opens the message on the mail client based on theinstructions and based on the actions of the recipient causing the mailclient to obtain the external content from the incoming mail server anddisplay the external content selectively integrated into the messagebased on the instructions; and processing the method regardless as towhether the message comprises the external content embedded within themessage when the message is associated with a Hypertext Markup Language(HTML) formatted message or not.
 2. The method of claim 1, whereinidentifying further includes authenticating a sender of the messagebased on a sending domain associated with the message.
 3. The method ofclaim 1 further comprising, tracking when the external content is viewedby the recipient on the mail client based on the instructions.
 4. Themethod of claim 3 further comprising, sending tracking informationassociated with the tracking to the external service.
 5. The method ofclaim 4 further comprising, identifying , by the incoming mail server, aspecial cookie provided by the mail client that identifies otherexternal content for other messages processed by the incoming mailserver for the mail client.
 6. The method of claim 5, whereinidentifying further includes setting the special cookie when the messageis a first message processed by the incoming mail server for the mailclient.
 7. The method of claim 4, wherein sending further includessending the tracking information as indications when the message isdelivered to the mail client but remains unopened by the recipient, whenthe recipient deletes the message from the mail client, and when therecipient clicks on an embedded link associated with the externalcontent after opening the message on the mail client.
 8. The method ofclaim 4, wherein sending further includes identifying the externalservice from a plurality of external services based on an identifierassociated with the external content or a sender associated with themessage.
 9. A method, comprising: via a processor of an incoming mailserver performing operations comprising: controlling messages thatinclude reference links to external content that is to be included inthe messages when opened on a mail client before the messages aredelivered to the mail client by obtaining the external content andinstructions from an external service associated with the externalcontent, wherein the instructions comprise specific instructions as tohow the external content is to be displayed on the mail client and howactions of a recipient of the messages are to be tracked and reportedback to the external service; delivering the messages with theinstructions to the mail client; integrating the external content intothe messages in a presentation format defined by the instructions whenthe recipient of the mail client opens the messages on the mail clientcausing the mail client to process the instructions, obtain thecorresponding external content in the presentation formation for thecorresponding messages from the incoming mail server based on processingthe instructions, display the external content in the presentationformat upon opening of the corresponding messages on the mail client,and track for and report to the actions of the recipient with respect tothe external content delivered to the mail client; processing the methodregardless as to whether the messages comprise the external contentembedded within the messages when the messages are associated withHypertext Markup Language (HTML) formatted messages or not.
 10. Themethod of claim 9 further comprising, reporting when the recipientdeletes any of the messages from the mail client without opening thosemessages to the external service associated with the external content.11. The method of claim 9 further comprising, reporting when therecipient opens any of the messages from the mail client to the externalservice associated with the external content.
 12. The method of claim 9further comprising, assigning a unique identifier to each of themessages having the external content.
 13. The method of claim 12 furthercomprising, maintaining a cookie on the mail client that uniqueidentifies the mail client, the recipient, each of the messages, andactions taken by the recipient with respect to each of the messages. 14.The method of claim 13 further comprising, reporting cookie contents forthe cookie to the external service associated with the external contentor the messages.
 15. The method of claim 9 further comprising,maintaining the actions taken by the recipient on the mail client withrespect to each of the messages and the external content based on theinstructions.
 16. The method of claim 15 further comprising, reportingthe actions, a recipient identifier associated with the recipient, amail client identifier associated with the mail client, messageidentifiers associated with the messages, and content identifiersassociated with the external content to the external service associatedwith the messages or the external content.
 17. The method of claim 9further comprising, authenticating senders associated with the messagesbased on the instructions.
 18. The method of claim 17, whereinauthenticating further includes integrating unique icons into themessages, each unique icon representing a particular sender of aparticular message along with an indication of results associated withthe authenticating for that particular sender.
 19. A system comprising:an incoming mail server comprising a processor and a non-transitorycomputer-readable storage medium; the non-transitory computer-readablestorage medium comprises executable instructions; a mail client; and theexecutable instructions are executed by the processor from thenon-transitory computer-readable storage medium causing the processor toperform operations , comprising: identifying external content associatedwith an incoming message that is to be delivered from a sender to arecipient associated with the mail client by parsing the incomingmessage and identifying the external content; obtaining the externalcontent and instructions associated with displaying and tracking theincoming message on the mail client from an external service associatedwith the external content; integrating the external content into apresentation format defined by the instructions into the incomingmessage; delivering the incoming message with the instructions to themail client causing the mail client to process the instructions, obtainthe external content in the presentation format from the incoming mailserver, and display the incoming message with the external content inthe presentation format upon opening of the incoming message on the mailclient by the recipient; tracking actions taken by the recipient withrespect to the incoming message and the external content that wasintegrated in the presentation format into the incoming message on themail client through a cookie maintained on the mail client; reportingthe actions for the incoming message and the external content to theexternal service in accordance with the instructions and based on cookiecontents associated with the cookie; and processing the executableinstructions regardless as to whether the incoming message comprises theexternal content embedded within the incoming message when the incomingmessage is associated with a Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) formattedmessage or not.
 20. The system of claim 19, wherein the executableinstructions are executed by the processor from the non-transitorycomputer-readable storage medium causing the processor to performadditional processing, comprising: authenticating a domain associatedwith a sender of the incoming message based on the instructions; andintegrating a unique icon associated with the domain and results ofauthentication into the incoming message before delivering the incomingmessage to the mail client.